"Actor: Vera Clouzot"

• The Wages of Fear (UHD) | Blu Ray | (19/02/2024) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the 1950 French novel Le Salaire de la peur and critically hailed upon its original release, The Wages of Fear propelled its director Henri-Georges Clouzot (Les Diaboliques) to international fame, and is rightly considered a classic of world cinema. In a squalid South American village, four desperate men are hired by a US oil company to embark on a treacherous journey, transporting a volatile cargo of nitro-glycerine to a massive oil well fire. Friendships and courage are pushed to the limit in this nail-biting thriller by a director who would go on to be dubbed the French Hitchcock Product Features 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) Audio commentary by film critic Adrian Martin (2017) Interview with assistant director Michel Romanoff (2005, 23 mins) Interview with Clouzot biographer Marc Godin (2005, 10 mins) Interview with Professor Lucy Mazdon (2017, 35 mins): an in-depth interview about Henri-Georges Clouzot and The Wages of Fear The Guardian Lecture: Yves Montand in conversation with Don Allen (1989, 99 mins, audio only): the star discusses his distinguished career Original theatrical trailer Other extras TBC **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet featuring writing on the film, original reviews and an appreciation of Clouzot by Paul Ryan

• The Wages of Fear (Limited Edition Dual Format) | DVD | (23/10/2017) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In 1953, before any American studio exec used the phrase "high concept", Henri-George Clouzot's The Wages of Fear boasted a premise so literally explosive that audiences were excited before they got into the theatres. With an oil-fire burning out of control deep in the South American jungle, two lorryloads of highly unstable nitro-glycerin have to be driven through miles of unstable terrain littered with dangerous turns, crumbling planks, falling rocks and mediocre hardtop. One good jolt will vaporise truck, nitro, drivers and a substantial swathe of the countryside, so the company recruits desperate souls among the loser tramps who loiter around the nowhere town of Las Piedras, begging for any kind of work. On the road, Clouzot stages a string of unforgettable sequences: one stretch of badly paved track can only be crossed by driving at under six miles an hour or over 40; a mountain turn requires that the trucks back out onto a rickety, rotten wooden structure; a 50-ton boulder has fallen into the road, and one of the drivers calmly drains a litre of nitro into his thermos to blow it up, only remembering when the fuse is lit that this will rain pebbles all over the countryside and a few good hits on the cargo will set it off. This is perhaps as great a mix of action-adventure and contest as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and still a textbook example of sustained suspense. On the DVD: The print is in great shape, though the image is a little soft; the menu has a clever explosive aspect and uses the same vintage artwork as the sleeve cannily combined with a snippet. There are trailers for both Wages and Clozuot's other masterpiece, Les Diaboliques, as well as biographies of the principal cast, eight stills and three posters.--Kim Newman

• Diabolique | Blu Ray | (05/06/2017) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Legend has it that Henri-Georges Clouzot beat out Alfred Hitchcock to secure the rights to this novel, which proved to be a veritable blueprint for an icy masterpiece of murder, mystery and suspense. Véra Clouzot plays the sickly wife of a callous headmaster of a provincial boarding school going to seed, and the commanding Simone Signoret is the headmaster's mistreated mistress. Together they plot and carry out his murder, a brutal drowning that director Clouzot documents in chilly detail, but the corpse disappears and a nosy detective starts sniffing around the grounds as threatening notes taunt the women. Clouzot's thriller is as precise and accomplished a work as anything in Hitchcock's canon, a film of gruelling suspense and startling shocks in an overcast, grey world of decay, but his icy manipulations lack the human dimension and emotional resonance of the master of suspense. Many critics have accused the film of being misanthropic, and Clouzot's attitude toward his characters is bitter at best, contemptuous at worst. The viewer is left on the outside looking in, but the razor precision and terrifying twists deliver a sleek, bleak spectacle worthy of attention. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Les Diaboliques | DVD | (29/10/2007) from £25.00   |  Saving you £-5.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Les Diaboliques is an unsettling and beautifully-paced study of betrayal mistrust and guilt. Set in a decaying boarding school it shows the grim course of a peculiar relationship between two female teachers and a sadistic headmaster. Atmospherically shot in black and white its murky tones hauntingly echo the moral ambiguity of its pricipals.

• Les Diaboliques | Blu Ray | (14/07/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Les Diaboliques is a classic suspense film that sets the standard rarely reached by contemporary movies. A blueprint for Psycho among others this film has many imitators but few peers.A tyrant schoolteacher - Delasalle (Paul Meurisse) in a seedy boarding school has both his wife (Vera Clouzot) and his mistress (Simone Signoret) looking for a way out as he maltreats them both. They decide to work together to murder their tormentor.The two women drown Delasalle in the bath then dump the body in a swimming pool. When the pool is drained and no body found they start to worry. When his suit is returned cleaned they start to panic.Is he alive? Does someone else know? A spiral of perfectly crafted tension hurtles you to an unparalleled conclusion and an ending you will never forget!Both frightening and intoxicating in equal measures this film stands the test of time and remains a classic.

• Les Diaboliques | Blu Ray | (25/04/2011) from £16.18   |  Saving you £8.81 (54.45%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Legend has it that Henri-Georges Clouzot beat out Alfred Hitchcock to secure the rights to this novel, which proved to be a veritable blueprint for an icy masterpiece of murder, mystery and suspense. Véra Clouzot plays the sickly wife of a callous headmaster of a provincial boarding school going to seed, and the commanding Simone Signoret is the headmaster's mistreated mistress. Together they plot and carry out his murder, a brutal drowning that director Clouzot documents in chilly detail, but the corpse disappears and a nosy detective starts sniffing around the grounds as threatening notes taunt the women. Clouzot's thriller is as precise and accomplished a work as anything in Hitchcock's canon, a film of gruelling suspense and startling shocks in an overcast, grey world of decay, but his icy manipulations lack the human dimension and emotional resonance of the master of suspense. Many critics have accused the film of being misanthropic, and Clouzot's attitude toward his characters is bitter at best, contemptuous at worst. The viewer is left on the outside looking in, but the razor precision and terrifying twists deliver a sleek, bleak spectacle worthy of attention. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Les Diaboliques | DVD | (24/10/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Legend has it that Henri-Georges Clouzot beat out Alfred Hitchcock to secure the rights to this novel, which proved to be a veritable blueprint for an icy masterpiece of murder, mystery and suspense. Véra Clouzot plays the sickly wife of a callous headmaster of a provincial boarding school going to seed, and the commanding Simone Signoret is the headmaster's mistreated mistress. Together they plot and carry out his murder, a brutal drowning that director Clouzot documents in chilly detail, but the corpse disappears and a nosy detective starts sniffing around the grounds as threatening notes taunt the women. Clouzot's thriller is as precise and accomplished a work as anything in Hitchcock's canon, a film of gruelling suspense and startling shocks in an overcast, grey world of decay, but his icy manipulations lack the human dimension and emotional resonance of the master of suspense. Many critics have accused the film of being misanthropic, and Clouzot's attitude toward his characters is bitter at best, contemptuous at worst. The viewer is left on the outside looking in, but the razor precision and terrifying twists deliver a sleek, bleak spectacle worthy of attention. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Les Diaboliques | Blu Ray | (18/04/2011) from £31.03   |  Saving you £-8.04 (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  After the success of The Wages of Fear (le Salaire de la peur) Henri-Georges Clouzot cemented his reputation with his masterpiece Les diaboliques an acknowledged influence on Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick among others presented here on on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK. Based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (who also wrote the novel on which Hitchcock's Vertigo is based) Les diaboliques tells the story of a sadistic headmaster (Paul Meurisse) who brutalises his wife and mistress (Vra Clouzot and Simone Signoret) and their plot to murder him. Superbly edited with nail-biting suspense the two women murder the headmaster and dump the body in the swimming pool but when the pool is drained no corpse is found. An unsettling and beautifully-paced study of betrayal mistrust and guilt Les diaboliques is atmospherically shot in black and white its murky tones hauntingly echo the moral ambiguity of its principals. Les diaboliques is presented in a brand new transfer from a new High Definition restoration of the original film negative.

• Wages Of Fear | DVD | (22/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The film that continues to serve as the benchmark for Clouzot's magnificent career. 'The Wages of Fear' established the writer-director on a truly international level after carrying off major prizes at the Cannes and Berlin film festivals. Part road movie part suspense thriller the plot is high-tension simplicity itself. In the South American jungle supplies of nitro-glycerine are urgently needed at a remote oil field. The unscrupulous American oil company pays four out-of-work men (Yves Montand Charles Vanel - the creepy cop in 'Les Diaboliques' Folco Lulli and Peter Van Eyck) to deliver the supplies in two sets of drivers: a tension magnified thousand fold by the unforgiving heat the lure of filthy lucre and the rough and rocky roads where the slightest jolt can result in agonising death. Which of the disparate desperate desperadoes will survive the white-knuckle journey and claim the loot and the glory?